Seagate to acquire Maxtor

It's a sleepy news day not long before Christmas and not much is happening, right? Well, not much except that Seagate is buying Maxtor in an all-stock transaction worth roughly $1.9 billion. The two storage giants will merge to become one, leaving the hard drive market with one less major player. They must be dead serious, too, because the press release uses the words "leveraging" and "synergies" by paragraph two. Both words are then repeated like mad throughout the rest of the release.

The combined company will retain Seagate's name, headquarters, and executive management. Maxtor's chairman and CEO, Dr. C.S. Park, will also be part of management. The deal is expected to close formally in the second half of 2006, if all goes according to plan.

And yes, Ronald already posted this in the Shortbread, but I thought it was worth a separate post. They are leveraging synergies here, people!